Productive Workplaces
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The classic book, Productive Workplaces: Organizing and Managing for Dignity, Meaning and Community (1987), was voted one of the most influential books of the last 40 years by the Organization Development Network. Not only did Weisbord do a 100-year history of the pioneers who shaped his own managing and consulting, he was the first to identify "whole system in the room" as a core 21st Century principle for improving workplaces and communities. Many readers wrote Weisbord describing how they had used his initial strategic meeting design to run successful events they had not envisioned. He then contacted other practitioners experimenting with democratic "search" processes. The result was Discovering Common Ground (Berrett-Koehler, 1992). with 35 co-authors. It featured cases and essays by people Weisbord had profiled in 1987, including Eric Trist and Fred Emery, inventors of the "Search Conference" in 1960, and Ronald Lippitt and Eva Schindler-Rainman, group dynamics pioneers of community futures conferences in the 1970's, plus ground-breaking contemporaries in Europe, Australia, and North America, like Margaret Wheatley and Dick Axelrod. That book opened people's eyes to the potential for "large group interventions." He and co-author Sandra Janoff have since written three editions of Future Search: An Action Guide (Berrett-Koehler, 1995, 2000, 2010).
In Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass/Wiley 2004), Weisbord added 100 pages of new cases and follow-ups to previous ones 15 to 30 years later, allowing him to generalize on the "sustainable change oxymoron."
Now, the 25th Anniversary (3rd) edition of PW, published in January, 2012, retains historical profiles, case studies, and new practice theories, plus 40 reader/practitioner stories portraying their achievements world-wide in a new Century. Weisbord also added new chapters on "ten myths I no longer believe," using large group meetings, and staying sane consulting and managing in a world of mind-numbing cultural diversity and change.
Here is a link to the Preface to Productive Workplaces, 25th Anniversary Edition.
